The Historical Jesus and the Parting of the Ways

Next week should see the publication of the massive tome Handbook for the Study of the Historical Jesus, edited by S.E. Porter and T. Holmen (Leiden: Brill, 2011), which includes 4 volumes with over a 120 essays. Note, this will be a library resource as opposed to a personal buy at the bargain basement price of $1329 USD (but then again it's USD which ain't so bad these days). Still, this will be one of the definitive resources for study of the historical Jesus for decades to come, so you should at least know about it if you are involved in Jesus/Gospel studies.

However, with permission from Brill, I'm able to put on-line my own contribution to the volume in the essay, The Historical Jesus and the 'Parting of the Ways'.

Bultmann on the Jewishness of early Christianity

Rudolf Bultmann, Primitive Christianity in its Contemporary Setting (trans. R.H. Fuller; Leipzig: Thames and Hudson, 1956 [1949]), 175: ‘The eschatological community did not split off from Judaism as though it were conscious of itself as a new religious society. In the eyes of their contemporaries they must have looked like a Jewish sect, and for the historian they appear in that light too.’

Matthew and Judeo-Christianity

Thanks to Craig Allert, I came across an interesting example of how the text of the Gospel of Matthew was handled by Judeo-Christian groups (I prefer this term to "Jewish Christian").

Mt. 8.4: "Go, show yourself to the priest and present the offering which Moses commanded, as a testimony to them."

In Tatian's Diatessaron, we find the same verse written as: "Go, show yourself to the priest and fulfill the law".

Does this provide evidnence of the text of Matthew being taken in a pro-Torah and pro-Jewish direction by elements within Judeo-Christianity in the secondary century? It certainly appears that way. Ironically, Matthew was a document that enabled and activated both pro (e.g. Mt. 15.24) and anti (e.g. Mt. 27.25) Jewish sentiments.

Christians Converting to Judaism

In my current study I am finding it quite illuminating how the threat or reality of Christians converting to Judaism was:

1. The counter-Pauline proselytizing mission was arguably attempting to force Gentiles to become Jews in order to become Christians, and so bring Gentile Christians in a closer relation to the Jerusalem church and with Judaism.

2. Hebrews is a document where the audience is under some form of duress. which is accompanied by a temptation to return to Judaism and to the synagogue.

3. The Apostolic Fathers has much to say about Christians going on to judaize. In the opinion of some scholars the Epistle of Barnabas has in its background competition between Jews and Christians for Gentile converts and the author of Barnabas goes so far as to warn Christians against adopting Jewish laws (Ep. Barn. 3.6). Ignatius of Antioch exhorted his readers against 'living in accord with Judaism' and 'Judaizing' (Ign. Magn. 8.1; 10.3), arguably becomes some either were or were tempted to do so.

4. The second century Apocalypse of Peter, written in vicinity to the Bar Kochba revolt of 132-35 AD, intimates in one passage that Jewish Christians were forsaking Jesus to follow a new Messiah, reneged on that decision, and were subsequently persecuted (Apoc. Pet. 2.8-13).

5. Justin Martyr knew of Christians who had 'gone over to the polity of the law' and 'have some some reason switched and joined the legal community, and now denying that he is the Christ' (Dial. Tryph. 47.4).

6. Eusebius refers to Serpation of Antioch who wrote a letter to a certain Domnus who later lapsed from the faith to Judaism during a time of persecution (Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 6.12).

7. The fourth century Council of Laodicea forbade Christians from keeping Jewish feasts and the Sabbath.

These texts obviously have a lot of implications of Jewish-Christian relations and for the "parting of the ways".